


we have fallen from tall buildings

by likewinning



Category: Captain America (Movies), DCU, DCU (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Comment Fic, Community: comment_fic, M/M, bucky barnes is ruining my life, jason todd is a menace to my well being
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 08:33:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2144061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likewinning/pseuds/likewinning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For comment_fic, prompt "Five people who tried talking to Bucky post Winter Soldier, and one (Jason) who actually succeeded."</p>
            </blockquote>





	we have fallen from tall buildings

**i.**

Fury gets straight to the point. Bucky gives him that.

“We could use your skills,” Fury says. “If you get your head together. With your training, you’d be an asset to the team.”

And Bucky is done being anyone’s asset. He’s just fucking _done_. He opens his mouth just long enough to tell Fury to go fuck himself, and then he shuts it again for weeks.

**ii.**

She talks to him in Russian, which is a mistake. He still thinks in it sometimes, the harsh syllables and cold diction, but it is not the language he wants to remember.

It is the language of those who helped turn him into this.

She apologizes – in English, with no trace of the accent she had seconds ago – but it doesn’t matter, not really. They erased what she was to him once, other than a shield to one of his targets.

“James, I can help,” she says, but he stopped listening before she spoke. Some person he used to be may have loved her once, as much as any ghost can love another, but that person is gone.

**iii.**

He’s not sure if Stark wants to help him so much as study him. Either way, he stopped being someone’s science project when he woke up and smelled the HYDRA bases burning to the ground.

**iv./v.**

He remembers pulling the wings off this kid’s back and so he is impressed, for the briefest of moments, by his willingness to be in the same room with Bucky.

It’s possible Steve found someone with a heart big enough to rival his own.

But he doesn’t want counselors. The kid can speak about sleeping on rocks all he wants. He can sit and wait for Bucky to talk. But he doesn’t want good, understanding men with easy-going smiles. He doesn’t want offers of silence.

He doesn’t want forgiveness, either, which is what Steve tries to give him, most of the time. As if Steve could bring back the lives that the Winter Soldier (that _he_ ) took with simple words.

He tries, though, with Steve. He owes him that much, and much more. He takes the food Steve brings him, the clothes that don’t quite fit (the part of him from a long, long time ago remembers when he’d hand his old clothes off to Steve), the cell phone full of numbers of people he can’t bring himself to care about yet, much less speak to.

With Steve, he listens to the stories. They’re about someone he only just recognizes, but he tries to smile, tries to – respond. The man Steve is looking for is buried beneath layers of metal, beneath twenty feet of snow. He wants to help Steve uncover that man, but at the same time it’s easier to –

It’s easier not to.

**vi.**

He doesn’t so much speak to Jason as pull a knife on him. He’s walking back to Avengers Tower (not _home_ , it can’t be that; home is a building that doesn’t even exist anymore) when all at once there’s a man leaping down on him from a rooftop.

That’s usually his line.

Before the man can even get all the way to his feet, Bucky has his back against the wall, his knife pressed to his throat. His eyes are wide and blue behind a mask, his black hair messy and just bordering on too long. The grin on his face is sharp enough to be a weapon. 

“Sorry,” he says, not sounding like it. “I just wanted to test your reflexes.”

And for the first time since his fall from the train, since the snow and the metal arm and waking back up, since - _everything_ \- Bucky laughs.

His knife still presses into Jason’s throat, and he laughs.

And laughs.

It fills the alleyway around them, echoes off the walls, comes out loud and rasping and more than a little desperate.

“Jesus,” Jason says, when Bucky finally stops. Bucky steps back a little. He knows that Jason’s hand is on the hilt of his own knife, in case. 

Which, fair enough.

Bucky recognizes him – he hasn’t seen him at the Tower, he’s not one of _them_ , but he’s read the file, knows he’s not exactly – one of the good guys.

But then, you could say the same about him.

“And I thought the Joker’s laugh was fucking creepy,” Jason says. “Are you –” he starts to ask, and then Bucky tenses, sure the next word is going to be _okay_ \- but Jason stops.

Grins like he might fall apart. “Fuck it,” Jason says. Bucky watches him, waits for the rest.

“Do you wanna talk, or should we just beat the shit out of each other until it feels better?”

Bucky almost laughs again, surprised, but he holds it back and says, “Let’s go with the second, and then maybe the other later.”

“Cool,” Jason says, and before Bucky can even move Jason gets the first hit in, right to Bucky’s cheekbone.

They fight for a long time. Not to kill, not even something so civilized as to _spar_ , but just to get their blood flowing, their hearts pumping, to feel the smack of flesh on flesh, to feel _something_ that isn’t sympathy, and fear, and worry. They don’t pull punches or slow down; they’re both a mess by the time they stop, breathless and bloody and grinning at each other.

Jason spits blood, and Bucky licks a cut on his lip.

“You good?” Jason asks then, and it’s a stupid fucking question, in a way, because of course he’s not, neither of them are, but at the same time –

At the same time, for the first time in a long _fucking_ time, he is.

“Yeah.”

As they leave the alleyway, Jason claps Bucky on the shoulder and says, “You know, I really do know a thing or two about crazy…”


End file.
